44 Minutes - Lyrical Meaning

Lyrical Meaning

The song documents the incident, and contains several direct references to the event. The incident began its timeframe at 9:17 a.m., which actually is "shortly past 9:00 AM", a line from the song that pays tribute to the facts of the event. In the song, there is "the fateful duo" that represents there were two perpetrators, who were "heavily sedated with thousands of rounds" with "armor piercing, fully automatic weapons", both of which are lines from the song. AK-47s and AR-15s, were also both referenced in the song and used during the event, and the portion that describes the shooting of "Achilles' heel" refers to how Mătăsăreanu was shot 29 times in the shins and feet. Furthermore, to guarantee full attention to detail, actual AK-47s were used as sound effects throughout the song, as stated by Dave Mustaine himself, "Underneath that snare, we're using a sample of an AK-47. It's a gun salute, where they do fire squad. These are things that you hear with records, and you go, "Wow, this is great. I never would have heard this before."